


they don't know a thing about us

by toastweasel



Series: the feeling never fades out my body [4]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Family Feels, Found Family, Gen, Genderfluid Character, I REGRET NOTHING, One Big Happy Family, all beifongs are queer, aunt lin, genderfluid huan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27226219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastweasel/pseuds/toastweasel
Summary: It turns out Aunt Lin is good at protecting more than just people. Who knew?[Genderfluid!Huan with a HEAVY helping of Aunt Lin and Lesbian Aunts Kyalin]
Relationships: Bumi II & Pema (Avatar), Kya II (Avatar) & Huan (Avatar), Lin Beifong & Huan (Avatar), Lin Beifong & Suyin Beifong, Lin Beifong/Kya II
Series: the feeling never fades out my body [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918957
Comments: 44
Kudos: 219





	1. but if you want to go out dancing

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a lyric from I'll Wait by Kygo. Chapter titles are from I Know A Place by MUNA.

_they don't know a thing about us_

“Huan is going to be in Republic City,” is the first thing Su says when Lin picks up her desk phone.

Lin resists the urge to slam the phone back into the cradle. They’re working on a major Triad bust, she doesn’t have time for Su’s egomania today. “My secretary said this was urgent.”

“It is! He’s never been to Republic City alone before. Would you keep an eye out for him?”

“He’s twenty four,” Lin practically growled into the receiver, “I’m not a babysitter.”

“He’s going to be having an art showing,” her sister presses, “he’s selling some sculptures as part of the relief effort. I’m putting him up at the Four Seasons but I know it would mean the world to him if his Aunt Lin came by and saw what he’s been up to.”

Lin refrains from mentioning she’d _seen_ what Huan had been up to six months before, when she’d taken a week of leave to spend with her sister’s family in Zaofu. She rubs her temple and sighs. “I’ll see what I can do.”

-/-

Lin doesn’t know what possessed her to agree to go to a bar with Kya, but she’s already regretting it.

It’s not a club, but the queer bar is full of twenty-somethings who bump and grind to the music and openly stare as Kya and Lin as they pay cover and push inside. As they worm their way to the bar to get drinks, Lin catches a familiar gold eyebrow piercing and shock of teal bang.

Her partner clearly sees him, too.

“Huan?” Kya asks.

He turns and his eyes widen in shock. Lin blinks. It’s her nephew alright, but he’s not in his usual robes. Lin almost doesn’t recognize him; he’s wearing a tight fringed cocktail dress with black and silver detailing, elbow length satin gloves, and battered patent leather wingtip heels. Eye shadow the same color as his streak ghosts the lid of each eye and—yes, there’s lipstick, too.

Kya doesn’t miss a beat.

“Sweetheart!” she exclaims, and throws her arms around Huan. Lin isn’t surprised at the familiarity; she knows they’ve been occasionally getting tea on Kya’s lunch breaks since they first met at the art showing several months earlier. “You look gorgeous.”

Huan numbly accepts the hug and Lin watches as his eyes glance nervously towards her. Lin looks him up and down, then reaches for her wallet and pulls out a business card.

“Take those shoes to my cobbler and get them fixed up,” Lin tells him gruffly, holding out the card. “If you can’t pay for them yourself, have Xing Fei put them on my tab.”

“Thanks, Aunt Lin,” he says nervously.

“You look good, kid,” she tells him with a nod, and the smile that spreads across his face is worth the emotion it took to get there.


	2. just give me trust and watch what'll happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aunt Lin saves the day, twice, and scandalizes Su in the process. Legend of Korra continues to be my favorite sitcom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to cass for the adorable mental image of Kya braiding Huan's hair that spawned the first half of this story!

Kya and Huan are seated on her floor, Huan sitting patiently as Kya carefully plaited his hair into traditional Water Tribe styles. Her nephew—nibbling she supposes, that was the word Kya had started to use for him after he had quietly explained to her his burgeoning gender identity—had come over for dinner, and somehow it had turned into Kya braiding his hair on the floor of Lin’s apartment, giving him life advice.

“If you’re looking to break into the larger scene, I’m sure Lin can help you find an apartment here,” Kya says as she deftly twists the hair along Huan’s sideshave into a complex weave that definitely would have eluded Lin’s fingers had she tried. “Right, Lin?”

Lin glances up from her evening newspaper, which she had been trying valiantly (and failing miserably) to read for the past hour. “Sure.”

Huan offers up a hesitant half-smile. “Mom would…”

“Your _mom_ can deal,” Kya says forcefully as she tugs Huan’s hair into places. “She was practically half your age when she started wandering the world.”

“That was Mom,” Lin corrects. “Su began her life of crime two years _after_ our mother saved the world.”

“A fact I’m sure Aunt Toph has never let her forget.”

Huan’s smile widens at the mention of his grandmother. “She hasn’t.”

“Good.”

Kya laughs as her partner’s snide jab and carefully twists a bobby pin into Huan’s hair, then starts in on the other side. “I’m sure Su will come around, and if she has any reservations she can take them directly to me.”

Lin sighs and puts her newspaper aside. Trying to read it had been a fool’s errand anyway. “An apartment, is it?”

He nods.

“What are you looking for?”

“If I get the fellowship, they’ll give me a stipend of up to a thousand yuans a month.”

“Does that include the studio space?”

He shakes his head. “We’ll have a place to work.”

She runs a finger over her bottom lip pensively, thinking of spaces across the city that would be within that budget. “Studio? One bedroom?”

“Studio is fine.”

Definitely not Fishopatamus Square. Fire Fountain Flats? Maybe. The owner owes her a favor. But he would probably want to be around people his own age—maybe the museum district, or down by the University.

“I can make some calls,” she finally offers up.

“Auntie Lin to the rescue,” Kya teases as she finishes up Huan’s hair. “No need to sift the classifieds with her on the case.”

Lin rolls her eyes.

Kya snaps a hairband into place and hands Huan the mirror so he can she her handiwork. “There. You look beautiful.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Huan says, touching along the braid with almost reverence. “What does it mean?”

“That I’m giving you away for marriage,” Kya deadpans, then nudges him in the side as his eyes grow wide. “I’m kidding. It’s just one of our gender neutral hairstyles. Very popular amongst the kids in the southern tribe right now.”

He smiles and tilts the mirror so he could see the back.

“I can show you some of the traditional feminine ones, too, if you’d like.”

“And it’s not…appropriative?”

“Not if I’m the one putting them in your hair in the privacy of Lin’s apartment.”

Huan hesitates, then offers up a half-smile.

“Sure,” he says. “Thanks.”

Kya smiles, and Lin watches as her nibling sits perfectly still as Kya’s fingers drift to start picking the braids out.

-/-

It feels like she’s a teenager again, the entire family clustered into the dining room at Air Temple Island for dinner on the Winter Solstice. Only now their family was quite a bit larger. Su’s entire clan is in residence, which adds five mouths to the table plus Su’s small safety attaché to feed and house. And then there is Korra, Prince Wu, and Korra’s entire crew, who are practically permanent residences on the island during certain parts of the year.

It’s crowded in the family dining room, for sure, and Lin is almost relieved when she is pressed into service in the kitchen. It gets her out of the chit chat and into someplace where she can be useful. She helps Kya and the acolytes loads trays full of dumplings, soup, and eight treasure porridge, then carries two into the dining room. Extra tables had been set up to accommodate everyone, and Lin puts her two trays down on the table that would be accommodating mostly the kids.

Huan is already seated, fidgeting with his napkin in a way that seems unlike him.

“Alright, kid?” Lin asks gruffly, but not unkindly, as she stands.

He nods significantly at the table. “I’m thinking of telling them.”

Lin arches an eyebrow, not entirely sure that Winter Solstice dinner is necessarily the best place to come out. But then again he was Su’s kid, and Su never did anything by halves. Why should Huan?

“Got it,” is all she says, and she leaves him to it.

She goes back to the kitchen to see if there was anything left to assist with, and Kya pushes her back out with a teapot for the kids. Lin drops it onto the table, then sits in her customary spot at the table and tucks the bottle of rice wine she had smuggled onto the island by her feet. Kya comes to join her at the ‘adults’ table once she and Pema had seen everything distributed, and the waterbender quickly sits next to her before anybody else could claim the spot.

“You don’t have to sit on the guest side, Kya,” Tenzin chides as he settles at the head of the table.

“I’ll sit where I want, Ten,” she snips, uncharacteristically short.

Tenzin raises one bushy eyebrow at Kya’s response but says nothing.

Lin lets her knee touch Kya’s under the table, and pours her, then Pema, and her sister and brother-in-law cups of tea. She passes the teapot to Bumi as he sits down on her other side and sips her tea quietly.

Kya’s hand finds Lin under the table, rubbing her thumb absently along the curve of Lin’s knee as Bumi engages Pema in small talk. Lin can feel Kya’s foot jiggling from where their legs are touching, which is unlike her, and Lin thinks with a start that her lover is nervous.

She tilts her head to look at Tenzin, who is distracted by Su and Baatar, then turns to her. “Kya?”

Kya glances at her, shakes her head, sips her tea.

Lin frowns. “Do you need to smoke?”

“I’m fine,” she murmurs, and squeezes Lin’s knee tightly in reassurance.

Lin can’t say anymore because Tenzin stands to give a small speech and the traditional Airbender Solstice blessing. She listens politely, but she keeps glancing at Kya.

What does Kya know that Lin doesn’t?

Beside her, when Tenzin finishes and sits, Kya picks a plate of vegetable dumplings off the rotating table. She services herself before passing the plate to Lin.

“Thanks.”

She takes a few, then passes to Bumi, who plates for both himself and Pema without missing a beat. Kya bends both of their bowls of porridge and soup, and the two of them listen to Su and Tenzin talk politics across from the table.

“I’m just saying,” Su says, gesturing animatedly, “if each Earth Kingdom state broke _entirely from the larger system,_ we could create a much fairer judicial system based on state laws, not Kingdom laws.”

“The Earth Kingdom has laws, though,” Tenzin replies patiently.

“And more of them were put in by a tyrannical set of dictators! Each state should be able to dictate its own law and order instead of from a larger body of representatives that dictates across the continent.”

Lin thought that was a bit ridiculous, that Wu’s ideas were fine for what they were and that with a bit of reform the Earth Kingdom would be fine, but bites her tongue and glances at Kya instead of interrupting. Her partner is sipping her soup straight from her bowl, clearly intent on staying out of it. Su was just as well traveled as Kya, but Kya had always been a tad more radical than Su. Lin’s sister was a great fan of picking and choosing what she wanted to apply to her life, and in this case, what to apply to governing Zaofu.

“You don’t think there would be unrest?” Tenzin continues.

“There’s already unrest!”

Lin glances at her sister’s husband and exchanges with him a long-suffering look. Baatar Sr. looks like he wishes his wife is discussing anything else, like he’s heard this a million times and, while being supportive, is tired of it.

Lin can commiserate. She reaches between herself and Kya for the bottle of rice wine she had brought with her. Baatar Sr. smiles in approval as she pulls it up, and she slits the wax and pours herself a teacup of rice wine.

She feels an elbow in her side, and looks over. Kya’s raises one insistent eyebrow.

She pours her one as well.

“Me three,” Bumi grumbles from beside her, barely audible, and she pours a third, then leans over the table to fill Baatar’s glass, too.

“You’re pouring wine and not offering me any?” Su asks, mocking hurt.

Lin rolls her eyes. Just as she bends Su’s cup to her end of the table so she can pour the remainder of the bottle, there is a disturbance at the other table.

“I’m sorry, _what_?” Bolin chokes just as Meelo stands up and screams, “Yeaaah, dress party!”

Lin’s eyes flick immediately to Huan. He is scrunched back in between his shoulders, red in the face and uncomfortable. Su turns, sees the look on her second oldest’s face in amongst the varying looks of surprised (Korra and Bolin), indifferent (Mako and Asami), happy (Jinora, Opal, and Ikki), and excited (Wing, Wei, amd Meelo), and frowns.

“What’s going on?”

Korra and Bolin fumble around uselessly until Mako cuts them off with a quick,

“Nothing, Mrs. Beifong.”

Lin grimaces. Exactly the wrong thing to say to Su.

“Oh, now I think you should tell me,” her sister said dangerously, in the tone of voice Toph used to use when she could tell they were lying.

Highly effective for the mother of five children, Lin thinks, but the wrong move here.

Lin starts to move, to interrupt, to stand, to distract Su, but Kya grips her leg firmly under the table.

She glances at her. Kya shakes her head.

She turns back and watches as all of the kids unsubtle-y looked straight at Huan. Even Mako. Lin is disappointed in him.

“Huan?” Su asks.

“He was just saying—”

“I asked Huan, Bolin,” Su interrupts, eyes flashing in a way that instantly made the entire table cringe.

“Honey—” Baatar starts, but Lin stops paying attention the second Huan glances her way.

The panic in his eyes isn’t like the uneasiness when they had run into him at the bar. No, it’s panic that is quickly turning to fear, and she can tell he’s overwhelmed at being the sudden center of attention. Whatever he had planned for isn’t going his way, and he needs an exit strategy.

She glances at Kya and tells she can see it, too.

Kya tilts her head in approval, and Lin says sharply, “Su.”

Su swiveled her head angrily. “ _What_ Lin?”

Lin looks at Kya, sees her understand, sees her nods.

So Lin leans in and kisses her in front of the entire dining room.

The kid’s table immediately explodes in excitement. Kya smiles against her lips, and Lin is distinctly aware of the fact Tenzin is sputtering across the table from her but doesn’t give a damn because Kya’s hand comes up to cup her cheek. Her mouth falls open instinctively so her partner can deepen the kiss, and one of the twins wolf whistles at the other table.

She pulls away from Kya to shoot them a glare, but they are too busy tittering in delight to care.

“Lin!” Her sister says in surprise, delight etched over her features. “When did _this_ happen?”

She shrugs. “’Bout nine months ago.”

“Nine _months?!”_ Su exclaims, clearly scandalized she didn’t know about it immediately.

Lin doesn’t care. It hadn’t been any of her sister’s business.

Down the table, Pema sighs and slides Bumi a single yuan coin from the folds of her robe. Bumi pockets the coin with a wink.

“You bet on us, Bum?” Kya asks, her voice warm in amusement.

“You bet. Lin’s been in far too good a mood lately to not be getting laid.”

“Bumi, there are _children_ —” Tenzin splutters, just as Pema interjects, “To be fair I thought so too, I just didn’t think it was _Kya.”_

Kya laughs in delight beside her. Lin can feel herself getting red, but a quick glance at Huan shows there deep relief etched all over his features, so she puts up with the embarrassment. Kya reaches for her hand, twining their fingers together, and leans in for another kiss.

Lin accepts the kiss, but keeps it short. She doesn’t like that everyone is watching.

“Oogies,” Bumi says wisely over the table Tenzin as the two women part. He sticks out his tongue and wiggles his fingers in mock disgust, and the entire adult table dissolves into laughter. Kya cackles so hard she has to lean against Lin’s shoulder to support herself, and even Tenzin has to duck to hide his amusement.

“I don’t get it,” Bolin says to Korra, who shrugs.

“Oh Angi, they don’t know,” Bumi wheezes, which sets Kya off again, and she full on cries with laughter against Lin’s side as Pema giggles into her tea.

“It’s not _that_ funny,” Lin tells her partner as eleven blank faces watch the adults lose it to varying degrees across the room from them.

“But I don’t get it either,” Lin hears Baatar Sr. whisper to Su, who has finally gotten ahold of herself enough to sit up straight again.

“It’s something Uncle Sokka used to say,” she explains patiently to her husband, patting his arm comfortingly, “when Master Katara and Aang got too couple-y.”

“Oh!” Korra exclaims from the other table. “That’s why it’s so familiar.”

“That’s so weird,” Wing tells her earnestly. “I thought you were cut off from your past lives?”

Korra shrugs. “Some things just stick around, y’know?”

Despite the laughter, Lin is now desperate for the spotlight to be removed now that the danger to Huan has passed. “Are we all done?” she asks sternly. “Can we return to eating?”

“So you can cut and run?” Su accuses playfully, leaning aggressively across the table like she might try to metalbend her sister to the floor to keep her from escaping. “No way, I want details. Tell me everything!”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“You’re dating my sister!” Tenzin exclaims, his head slowly turning red. “And you didn’t think to tell us?!”

Lin glances at Kya, who smiles and says simply to the room at large, “You didn’t ask.”

.

.

.

Later that night, Huan catches up with them as they are going to bed.

“Aunt Lin, Kya,” he calls down the hall, jogging as fast as his body and his socks against the bamboo floors would allow. “Wait!”

They stop, and Kya gives him an encouraging smile as he gets closer. “What’s up, Huan?”

Huan glances back down the hallway at the family quarters, which is still brightly lit with the yellow and red lanterns, and tugs at his neck awkwardly. “I… just wanted to thank you for—”

“Don’t mention it,” Lin says gruffly before he can finish. She has nothing against this, but she is just too tired for anymore emotions. The relentless questioning and teasing has wrung her out. She just wants to get to bed.

Kya reproachfully checks her with her hip and slides an arm around her, rubbing her side soothingly. “What she means to say is, are you okay?”

Lin’s nephew glances between them, hesitates, then nods.

“You sure?”

He nods again.

“We’re proud of you,” Kya says kindly. You don’t have to tell anybody if you’re not ready.”

“Think it’s a little too late for that,” Huan quips with enough dry, certified Beifong sarcasm that it’s enough to make Lin’s lips quirk upward.

Lin slides a hand into her pocket. “What did you say at the table?”

“I—uh—made a joke,” he says, and he twists the spinner ring around on his middle finger with his thumb. “About my identity.”

“Well go on,” Kya encourages, “let’s hear it.”

He glances down the hallway, then turns back and says in complete deadpan, “The tangyuan the acolytes made for dessert tonight were three shades off the color my new dress, and I think it’s transphobic they didn’t take my need to coordinate into account.”

Kya chokes in surprise and even Lin cracks a grin.

 _“Nice,”_ Kya exclaims in delight and gives him a gentle shoulder punch. “A good way to come out.”

“If I recall you came out in a similar way,” Lin adds wryly.

“I made a pole-beaver joke at the dinner table,” Kya recalls fondly, her eyes twinkling. “Uncle Sokka and Dad lost it. Mom tried not to smile but failed, and Tenzin was a square.”

“Family tradition.”

Huan smiles.

A head pops around the corner, and Lin immediately tenses.

“Huan?”

Just Su, Lin realizes as her sister speaks, and as she comes fully around the corner. Still, not necessarily the best person to be overhearing this conversation.

Su comes down the hallway, padding gently in her slippers, taking in the scene in before her. Her brow furrows like she’s trying to put together a puzzle that she doesn’t have all the pieces for. But there’s also something behind her eyes that’s she’s trying to hide, Lin thinks. Some kind of hurt.

“Lin, Kya,” she greets as she draws closer. “Off to bed?”

“Just turning in, yeah,” Kya says, not taking her arm from around Lin’s waist.

Su smiles at them. “Can I borrow my child, then? I want to speak to him.”

Huan glances at his mother, then at them.

Lin straightens up imperceptibly at the uneasiness in his gaze. “Need us to go with you, kid?”

He glances between them again, and she can tell Su doesn’t miss the exchange.

“No, it’s fine,” he says honestly.

“I’ll talk with _you_ later,” Su tells her fondly, and gently touches Huan’s shoulder. “I just want to catch up with him.”

“It’s fine, Aunt Lin.”

She nods. If he’s fine with it, she’s fine with it.

“G’night, Huan,” Kya says, and when she gives Lin a gentle squeeze she’s prompted to say, “Goodnight.”

“G’night,” he tells them, and Su and Huan turn and walk down the hall towards the guest quarters.

Together, they watch as Huan saunters beside his mother, his hands in his pockets, answering questions about his fellowship and current work.

“Think he’ll be alright?” her partner asks as they turn the corner, out of sight and out of earshot.

Lin lets out a soft breath through her nose and turns back down the hall to the room they were sleeping in for the evening.

Kya trails beside her, brow still knitted in concern. “You know Su will ask.”

“She will,” Lin agrees, and slides the door to their cell open.

“You aren’t worried about what she’ll say?”

Lin glances at her, then shakes her head and reaches up to undo the shirt clasp at her throat.

“Why not?”

“She’s Su,” she says simply. “Family always comes first.”


End file.
